Maritime workers board Flag of Convenience ships in national week of action

New Zea­l­and mari­time work­ers will be going up the gang­way this week to check out ships fly­ing “flags of con­veni­ence” and ensure that crew con­di­tions, wages, and health and safety stand­ards are up to scratch.

The Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) is hold­ing its New Zea­l­and Flag of Con­veni­ence Week of Action this week, end­ing Fri­day 3 June 2011.

Mem­bers of the ITF-affil­i­ated Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and will board ves­sels in New Zeal­and’s main ports, and go over doc­u­ment­a­tion such as wage books, talk to crews, and inspect the sea­wor­thi­ness and safety of ships.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Joe Fleet­wood says this is part of an ongo­ing inter­na­tion­al cam­paign to improve stand­ards in the ship­ping industry.

He says that there have been a num­ber of ser­i­ous incid­ents on over­seas ves­sels, includ­ing FOC ves­sels, in New Zea­l­and ports and in and around New Zea­l­and waters in recent years.

“We have had ongo­ing incid­ents ran­ging from under­pay­ment of wages, fail­ure for crews to be returned home at the end of their con­tracts, mis­treat­ment and abuse, all the way up to ser­i­ous injur­ies and deaths, and the sink­ing of ves­sels.”

Flag of Con­veni­ence (FOC) ves­sels are registered in coun­tries with very lax or non-exist­ent reg­u­la­tion of the mari­time industry.

FOCs provide a means of avoid­ing labour reg­u­la­tion in the coun­try of own­er­ship, and become a vehicle for pay­ing low wages and for­cing long hours of work and unsafe work­ing con­di­tions.

ITF New Zea­l­and inspect­or Gra­hame MacLar­en says the week of action is inten­ded to con­vey a clear mes­sage to Flag of Con­veni­ence oper­at­ors who trade in New Zea­l­and waters that they need to abide to basic ITF stand­ards.

“The main focus will be to tar­get FOC ves­sels without ITF agree­ments for the crew, but any oth­er for­eign flagged ves­sels will come under scru­tiny.”

The ITF is made up of 681 uni­ons rep­res­ent­ing 4,500,000 trans­port work­ers in 148 coun­tries. It is one of sev­er­al Glob­al Uni­on Fed­er­a­tions allied with the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Uni­on Con­fed­er­a­tion (ITUC).